New K-On!! Songs Are #2, #3 on Weekly Singles Chart

The market survey firm Oricon reported on Tuesday that the new ending and opening theme songs for the K-ON!! television anime series ranked #2 and #3, respectively, on the singles sales chart for the week of August 2-8. The fictional five-girl band Ho-kago no Tea Time's "No, Thank You!" sold 87,000 copies, while the band's "Utauyo!! Miracle" sold 85,000 copies. Only "This is Love," the first new single in a year from the male idol group SMAP, topped Ho-kago no Tea Time's songs this past week.

The anime's first set of opening and ending theme songs, "Go! Go! Maniac" and "Listen!!" ranked #1 and #2 in their first week of sales this past spring. That feat made Ho-kago no Tea Time only the third female act to ever rank one-two simultaneously on the chart and the first to do so in 26 years.

K-ON!! is the second television anime series based on kakifly's K-On! four-panel comedy manga about a group of high school girls who form a band. Voices actresses Aki Toyosaki (Yui Hirasawa), Yōko Hikasa (Mio Akiyama), Satomi Satou (Ritsu Tainaka), Minako Kotobuki (Tsumugi Kotobuki), and Ayana Taketatsu (Azusa Nakano) perform as their respective characters in the anime's soundtrack and the related CD releases. Both the original manga and the ongoing anime are scheduled to end next month.

Bandai Entertainment announced at Anime Expo in July that it licensed the first K-On! television series, and Yen Press licensed the original manga. The parent company of the Japanese television station TBS reported that it earned 1.8 billion yen (about US$20 million) in sales of K-ON!! anime t-shirts and other tie-in characters goods from April 1 to June 30.

Source: Mainchi Shimbun's Mantan Web